![]() ![]() TICKETS $100/$90 members, includes seasonal dinner by farm-to-table chef Brian Alberg, wine, and book. Praised by The New York Times as “uncommonly smart and beautifully written,” “absorbing” (Kirkus) and “engaging and witty” (San Francisco Chronicle), Paradise Now offers an infectious yet clear-eyed account of those who “lived on the cusp of an incandescent future,” perhaps gently nudging us to ask what sort of future we want to build for ourselves. In Paradise Now, Chris Jennings offers a spellbinding account of American utopianism and the bold, eccentric visions for the future put forward by five of history’s most influential utopian movements, including the Shakers. ![]() When a really smart historian is funny, lively, and a natural storyteller, magic can happen, especially when he talks about a generation of 19th century dreamers who took it upon themselves to confront the messiness and injustice of a rapidly changing world with a utopian response. ![]()
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![]() ![]() I don’t find completely likeable characters interesting, because they aren’t very realistic. ![]() I know she can be abrasive and blunt but I find most people have someone like that in their lives – either a friend or a family member – and we know them so well we know why they behave the way they do, and it keeps us from killing them. Was it hard to write a character people may find unlikeable? I found Smidge a really hard character to like, even given her situation. I’m definitely more of a Danielle than a Smidge, but I try to take tips from Smidge on how to get people to listen. Would you consider yourself more like Smidge or Danielle? Just come in and raise her daughter, marry her husband, just to make sure that things were still being done “the right way” once she wasn’t able to be there anymore. I have a few bossy friends and I started thinking about what would happen if one of them decided they needed me to finish her life for her. How did you come up with the idea for the book? It’s about the lengths we’ll go to for the people we love. It’s about two life-long friends who decide to share a big secret when one of them is facing terminal cancer and asks the other to take over her life once she’s gone. ![]() ![]() Tell us about your latest book, You Take It From Here. ![]() ![]() ![]() Pynchon, describing the themes behind his early stories, cites Adams, saying “Given my undergraduate mood, Adams's sense of power out of control, coupled with Wiener's spectacle of universal heat-death and mathematical stillness, seemed just the ticket” (Pynchon, Slow Learner). One book in which Pynchon found thematic accord was The Education of Henry Adams, authored by the grandson and great-grandson of the two Adams presidents. ![]() And what better testament to Pynchon’s reading than his own novels: like the far-reaching, historical, surreal, mixed-bag plots of V. and one that read and worked until 3 the next morning” (Nichols, “In and Out of Books”). ![]() A college-aged Thomas Pynchon was characterized by Lewis Nichols, a New York Times columnist, as “a constant reader-the type to read books on mathematics for fun. ![]() ![]() ![]() Poneman forewarned Jasper that Marin was seeking "a lexicon of grunge" Jasper recalled Marin explaining, "Every subculture has a different way of speaking and there's got to be words and phrases and things that you folks say." Jasper tested her interviewers' gullibility by supplying invented slang expressions of increasing ridiculousness. ![]() She was telephoned first by UK magazine SKY and later by Rick Marin for The New York Times. ![]() She had previously worked for Sub Pop Records, whose co-founder Jonathan Poneman referred journalists to her, ostensibly for her inside knowledge of grunge, but also because of her prankish streak. The words later labelled "grunge speak" were coined by Megan Jasper, then aged 25 and working for Caroline Records. They were essentially made up on the spot there was no such vernacular among members of the grunge scene, and the terms that were published were merely a prank on the news industry's tendencies to seize upon trends. The collection of alleged slang words were coined by a record label worker in response to a journalist asking if grunge musicians and enthusiasts had their own slang terms, seeking to write a piece on the subject. Grunge speak was a hoax series of slang words purportedly connected to the subculture of grunge in Seattle, reported as fact in The New York Times in 1992. ![]() ![]() It’s snortingly funny, honest, page turning and downright fabulous. ★★★★★ ‘A fantastic, funny and oh so sexy story, full of Highland mischief and romance!’ Julia Jarrett, author of The Dogwood Cove series And don’t get me started on the steam! I can NOT wait until the next book.’ Kelly Kay, author of The Five Families Vineyard series ★★★★★ ‘Is there a reason you’re just discovering Evie Alexander? Where have you been?! Evie’s writing crackles and pops with the most delightful characters and wit. This book had me crying with laughter and begging for more…’ Margaret Amatt, author of The Scottish Island Escapes series ![]() ★★★★★ ‘A hilariously funny and sizzlingly sexy romp in the Scottish Highlands. Highland Games is a steamy, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, with no cheating, no cliff-hanger, and a guaranteed happy ever after (HEA) ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Dreiser attains such combinatorial proficiency by operating with a rather distinct method of characterization, correlating the traits of particular characters (primarily Carrie) with a variety of forms of imagery employed to describe the external circumstances that affect them. Featuring elements of two of the most prominent literary “movements” of the time in which it was written, the very consistency of Sister Carrie seems to be built on the combination of “discrepant” parts. In the case of Dreiser’s Sister Carrie – a novel that has been repeatedly classified in separate accounts as a work of literary realism and literary naturalism – the exact opposite seems to hold true. He was an objective realist who remotely brought together his facts but at the same time he was more. But if this denomination is reflected by the acceptance of the sordid side of life and a more faithful registration of personal experience, then it can be a characteristic of his work. ![]() There was much debate to whether Dreiser was a “naturalist” after the model of Zola. Keywords: sister carrie naturalism, sister carrie realism ![]() ![]() This commission directly supports us as a small business and ensures that we can continue to create high-quality content for upper elementary teachers, like yourself! As always, the products shared are tried, true, and tested. If you purchase through one of these links, The Teacher Next Door, LLC receives a few cents on the dollar. This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. The books listed below have interesting and thought provoking stories your students will enjoy! One reading tip I like to share with students is to stop every now and then to think about their reading (being metacognitive) and to notice how their thinking has changed since they started the story, or since they paused to think the last time. This set of sentence starters helps students to see the progression of how their own thinking changes as they get new information from the text. Here is the sentence frame I like to use for synthesizing: At first I was thinking … Then I was thinking … Now I am thinking … Synthesizing often occurs with longer pieces of literature, like chapter books, but it can also be modeled using picture books. ![]() This ongoing process takes place as a reader’s thinking is changed as he/she learns and grows. This higher-level type of thinking occurs when students combine their own schema with information from the text to create a new level of understanding. ![]() Synthesizing is one of the more difficult reading comprehension strategies to teach. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Welcome or not, Cotton seeks to even the odds in the perilous race. Competing for the historic prize–and desperate for the crucial information Stephanie possesses–is Raymond de Roquefort, a shadowy zealot with an army of assassins at his command. Armed with vital clues to a series of centuries-old puzzles scattered across Europe, she means to crack a mystery that has tantalized scholars and fortune-hunters through the ages by finding the legendary cache of wealth and forbidden knowledge thought to have been lost forever when the order of the Knights Templar was exterminated in the fourteenth century. It begins with a violent robbery attempt on Cotton’s former supervisor, Stephanie Nelle, who’s far from home on a mission that has nothing to do with national security. Justice Department, is enjoying his quiet new life as an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen when an unexpected call to action reawakens his hair-trigger instincts–and plunges him back into the cloak-and-dagger world he thought he’d left behind. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was–and its true nature could change the modern world.Ĭotton Malone, one-time top operative for the U.S. ![]() until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. ![]() The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes. ![]() ![]() ![]() Moreover, in spite of the fact that James has turned into a monster, Em has difficulty killing him. So there are a number of paradoxes that might cause Einstein to shudder. Also, none of the previous efforts by Em and Finn, in which they took actions that should have changed the future, actually did change anything. Presumably, this note instructs her to kill James, but this will be especially tricky because it was James who invented time travel. This time, she says to her future self in the note, “You have to kill him.” ![]() They have apparently tried before: Em has left herself a note explaining that she has escaped thirteen previous times, and failed in this mission. They need to figure out how to escape and go back to the past to stop all this from happening. And the future James goes back to prevent it.Īs the book begins, Em and Finn are in separate prison cells, getting tortured regularly. Em and her boyfriend Finn go back to the past to kill James, who is Em’s first love and Finn’s best friend. What is also different about this time travel story is that the future versions of people can interact with the past versions. This is a YA time travel story, unique in that the narration not only alternates between the same characters, but between their past and present selves. ![]() ![]() ![]() Marcus again wheedles his way into Cam’s life and steals the cardboard maker, creating a monster maker to speed up the creation of cardboard monsters. Marcus uses a squirt gun to ruin Bill’s legs, and in a panic, Mike uses the scraps to fashion a cardboard maker. Mike buys Cam a cardboard box from a crazy road-side seller who gives him two rules for the cardboard: “First, you must return every scrap you don’t use!… And second, you can’t ask me for more cardboard.” Mike and Cam make a boxer, Bill, out of cardboard, and it comes to life. ![]() It doesn’t help the neighborhood rich kid, Marcus, is a bully and lords his toys over Cam. His wife died recently and he so broke he can’t afford a birthday present for his son, Cam. Summary: Mike is a single father, looking for work. ![]() Interest: It was a new graphic novel I saw at my local library. ![]() |